Lizzie McGuire

Lizzie McGuire
Format	Teen sitcom
Created by	Terri Minsky
Starring	Hilary Duff Lalaine Vergara-Paras Adam Lamberg Jake Thomas Hallie Todd Robert Carradine
Theme music composer	Elliot Lurie
Composer(s)	Sam Winans
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	65 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Susan Estelle Jansen Stan Rogow
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Disney Channel
Original run	January 12, 2001 (2001-01-12) – February 14, 2004 (2004-02-14)

Lizzie McGuire is a Disney Channel Original Series that aired on the Disney Channel from January 12, 2001 until February 14, 2004. It lasted for two seasons. Its target demographic was preteens and adolescents. The series was created by Terri Minsky.

The show's creatively offbeat, mixed media format stood out from the rest of the Disney Channel's programming of the time and, in essence, became the channel's flagship and definitive show of the early 2000s. The show's producer Stan Rogow says the visual look of the show was partly inspired by Run Lola Run.^[1] Production was completed in 2002 after the show fulfilled its 65 episode order.

The series won Favorite TV Show at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards two years in a row in 2002 and 2003.

Characters

Main characters

• Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff): Lizzie is the main character of the show. She is portrayed as a fun teen although her animated alter ego displays her true feelings from time to time including becoming rebellious, disrespectful and rude in the episode "Bad Girl McGuire." Lizzie constantly gets into arguments with her younger brother Matt but is well-aware of what is right and wrong.
• Miranda Sanchez (Lalaine Vergara-Paras): Miranda is one of Lizzie's best friends; She, Lizzie, and Gordo form the main triumvirate. Miranda is the most self-conscious of the three as is evident in an episode in which she skips meals to get an "anorexic" look, but Lizzie and Gordo always see through her crisis. Her family is Hispanic, but she speaks very little Spanish. Miranda's middle name is revealed to be Isabella in the episode, "Rated Aargh." She did not appear in the last six episodes, nor in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. During this time, her character was said to be vacationing with her family in Mexico.
• David "Gordo" Gordon (Adam Lamberg): Gordo is one of Lizzie's best friends and has been since they were one day old. He usually offers sarcasm and good advice. He is portrayed as being very intelligent, practical, and he is a "Straight A" student. He was revealed to be Jewish, as shown in one episode where he had a bar mitzvah. In the episode "The Untitled Stan Jenson Project" it was revealed that Lizzie had a crush on him in the fourth grade. In The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Gordo was pulled into a lip-lock with Lizzie after she realizes what a big mistake she has made. In the episode "Dear Lizzie" it is revealed that Gordo has a crush on Lizzie.
• Matt McGuire (Jake Thomas): Matt is Lizzie's little brother. As a stock character, he was often destroying something. He had a best friend named Lanny, who did not speak on-screen. Matt was clever and wily and had a reputation for getting into trouble. Matt and Lizzie shared a typical brother-sister relationship. They fooled around, annoyed each other, but were always there for each other at the end of each episode. He was rather intelligent and creative and knew how to humor people.
• Jo McGuire (Hallie Todd): Jo is Lizzie and Matt's mother. She cared deeply about Lizzie but was still trying to figure out how to raise a teenager. As a result, she sometimes tended to "mess up" situations in Lizzie's life while trying to help make them better. At the end of each episode, Jo and Lizzie tend to come to an understanding and portray the unfaltering love of a mother-daughter relationship.
• Sam McGuire (Robert Carradine): Sam is Lizzie and Matt's father. He could be best described as a bit goofy and quite clueless about raising his kids. However, he always tried his best to help Lizzie out and understand her and was always available to lend a helping hand.

Recurring/Minor characters

• Kate Sanders (Ashlie Brillault): Kate was the most popular girl at Lizzie's school. Originally one of Lizzie and Miranda's best friends, Kate became popular because she got a bra after summer camp was over; as a result of her new-found popularity, Kate became Lizzie's enemy. Kate enjoyed trying to make Lizzie's life miserable, but Lizzie always managed to outsmart Kate and come out on top. References in episodes are inconsistent about her last name. While Kate was mean to Lizzie in the series, she helps her out and becomes Lizzie's friend again in The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
• Ethan Craft (Clayton Snyder): Ethan was the boy who Lizzie, Miranda, and the rest of the girls at school had a huge crush on. He did not appear to be very bright, but he was kind and friendly to everyone. In season one, he was portrayed as more of a bad boy or a class bully. For example, he used to force Gordo to do things against his will.
• Larry Tudgeman (Kyle Downes): Referred to as "Tudgeman" (or simply Tudge), Larry was the school dork. He was treated like an outcast by everyone except by Lizzie and her friends (with exceptions). He also had been known to wear the same shirt since the fourth grade. Larry had a huge crush on Lizzie (that she did not return) and even asked her out to go to the science museum. Lizzie accepted his invitation to make him feel liked.
• Claire Miller (Davida Williams): Claire was Kate's new best friend. She was not very kind to Lizzie. She could sometimes even be unkind to her friends, including Kate, as shown in the episode "The Rise & Fall of The Kate Empire." She represented the stereotypical popular girl portrayed on many TV shows.
• Lanny Onasis (Christian Copelin): Lanny was Matt's best friend. He never spoke on-screen, but Matt seemed to have no problem communicating with him. Apparently, he was a direct descendant of Crispus Attucks.
• Melina Bianco (Carly Schroeder): Melina was initially Matt's friend who loved getting him into trouble. Later in the series, they both began to have feelings for each other.
• Digby "Mr. Digg" Sellers (Arvie Lowe Jr.): Mr. Digg was Lizzie's cool, laid-back substitute teacher. In his lessons he often implied that he had educated celebrities like Frankie Muniz and Christina Aguilera. He befriended Lizzie's dad in one of the episodes and dated Matt's teacher, Miss Jasmine Chapman.
• Edward and Daniela Sanchez (Armando Molina and Dyana Ortelli): They were Miranda's parents and appeared in a very few episodes, including "Night of the Day of the Dead" in which they played a prank on Kate.
• Howard and Roberta Gordon (Michael Mantell and Alison Martin): They were Gordo's parents, who were both psychiatrists.
• Parker Mackenzie (Chelsea Wilson): Parker was a girl in Lizzie's class. In an episode, Gordo had a crush on her. She was a vegetarian, as shown in the episode "Obsession". In an episode, Gordo asked Parker for a dance. She refused because in her opinion he is too short for her. Parker disliked Lizzie because she sneezed on her Macaroni Art in the 2nd grade and sat on her Titanic lunch box in the 5th grade.
• Danny Kessler (Byron Fox): Danny was Lizzie and Miranda's first heart-throb. He appeared in the first few episodes. His family owns a water park called "The Slip Slide".
• Veruca Albano (Rachel Snow): A nerdy girl who appeared once in Season 1 and more often in later seasons when Lizzie enters the eighth grade. In "Dear Lizzie", she asks Lizzie for help with a bully problem, and even confides to her that "nothing gets out goulash".
• Amy Sanders (Haylie Duff): Kate's 18 year old cousin, who acted like an older version of Kate. Plus, Kate and Amy had a rocky relationship. In the episode "Party Over Here" when Amy first appeared, Kate is shown to have a softer, slightly self-conscious side.
• Coach Kelly (Dot Jones): The gym teacher at Hillridge Junior High.
• Principal Tweedy (Phill Lewis): The principal of Hillridge Junior High.
• Mr. Escobar (Daniel R. Escobar): A teacher at Hillridge Junior High who taught Lizzie's class in junior grade.
• Jeremy Bargiel and David Rosen: They are Sam's best friends who own a pet chimp named Fredo. In "Rated Aargh!" Jeremy was choking and Lizzie saved his life.

Animated Lizzie

Animated Lizzie was an animated character who represented the title character's inner thoughts, addressing the audience directly in the manner of a Greek chorus. The show was not the first series to use animation to reflect a live-action character's innermost thoughts. McGee and Me and Student Bodies, two syndicated program about the struggles of a cartoonist for a school newspaper, often used the artist's surrealistic caricatures of himself and his friends to visually illustrate his interior monologues. Animated Lizzie was voiced by series star Hilary Duff.

Spin-offs

The show was completed after 65 episodes, which was reportedly a Disney policy for all of its series, although that has changed now due to the popularity and success of That's So Raven,The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, and Hannah Montana. Disney considered continuing the franchise in further films and a prime-time television series with Lizzie, Miranda and Gordo attending high school which was to be broadcast on ABC, but the plans never took off because Duff's representatives claimed she was not being paid enough for the proposed series.^[2]

Syndication

It was announced in late May 2006 that Superstation WGN (now WGN America) would carry Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens in syndication; this began on September 18, 2006. As a result, Disney Channel stopped airing both shows except for their holiday episodes, but Disney Channel began airing reruns of Lizzie McGuire in a multi-episode blocks two afternoons each week on September 12, 2009, thus making it the first Disney Channel series to air between 1998 and 2002 to be added back on the schedule after being removed from the channel's lineup. The first episodes to re-air were Pool Party, Picture Day, Rumors, and I've Got Rhythmic in that chronological order.

Episodes

Film

A film based on the show, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, debuted on May 2, 2003 at number two at the box office behind X2: X-Men United. It earned $42.7 million at the American box office.^[3] and eventually grossed $55.6 million worldwide.^[4] It received mixed reviews with one critic calling it, "an unabashed promotion of Duff’s image, just as Crossroads was for Spears."^[5] Other reviews were generally positive and encouraging.^[6][7][8]

Merchandising

The character of Lizzie continues to be merchandised by Disney, especially through a large set of Lizzie McGuire books, which include novelizations of the episodes, original Nancy Drew-style stories in the Lizzie McGuire Mysteries series, and "Cine-manga" pictorial adaptations (published by TOKYOPOP) with still shots from the show presented in manga style.

A Lizzie McGuire doll was released in 2002 by Dakin Toys. The 10" doll featured many of Lizzie's outfits. A plush doll of the Cartoon Lizzie was made by Dakin in 2002.

Fortune magazine estimated in 2003 that Lizzie McGuire merchandise had earned the Walt Disney Co. nearly $100 million.^[9] In the show's heyday, Radio Disney continually promoted Lizzie McGuire and regularly gave away the show's CD.

The Volume One DVD set of Lizzie McGuire. The only full-length DVD release to date, in the U.S.

Several home video and DVD versions of the show have been released in various countries. In the United States, some thematic episode collections were first released and later a DVD box set consisting of 22 episodes from the first season (mostly, but not entirely, corresponding to the first 22 episodes in production order). It is designated as "Volume 1", but no plans are known for the release of volumes 2 and 3 of the series, and poor sales of the first box set may prevent further releases. As of April 2006, a box set of 12 DVDs with all the 65 episodes of the show is available in Spain, and box sets (grouped into three 22-episode "seasons") Ireland TG4 are available in Australia and the UK.

Lizzie-themed toys were included in a 2004 McDonald's Happy Meal series, which included CD-ROM discs containing Lizzie-related games and graphics and audio versions of Lizzie (not voiced by Duff) reading stories based on episode plots of her show.

There is a Lizzie McGuire bedroom set offered by furniture stores as one of several Disney-themed children's bedrooms and a What Would Lizzie Do? board game where players must judge Lizzie's likely response to various situations. Three Lizzie McGuire video games have been released for the Game Boy Advance: Lizzie McGuire: On the Go (2003), Lizzie McGuire 2: Lizzie Diaries (2004), and Lizzie McGuire 3: Homecoming Havoc (2005).

Both seasons of Lizzie McGuire are now available on iTunes.

DVD releases

See also

• Lizzie McGuire (soundtrack)
• Lizzie McGuire Total Party!
• Lizzie McGuire books

References

External links

• Lizzie McGuire at the Internet Movie Database
• Lizzie McGuire at TV.com
• Official website (Internet Archive)